


Manhattans in Flagstaff

by Jillypups



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Benjeera, Blind Date, Countdown to wintertown, F/M, Fluff, Nonsense, chickadee waltzing up and rescuing glum chum, cocktails, flagstaff AZ, game of ships challenges, i can just imagine the day some customer gets in her face and she is like NOPE fuuuuu, i love them, jojen the sassy bartender, official OTP status for these two, osha the bored af waitress, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5582263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/136258435353/manhattans-in-flagstaff-written-for">picset</a>
</p><p> </p><p>Meera comes to visit her brother in the restaurant where he tends bar, and sees a cute older man who has apparently been stood up. </p><p>For the Game of Ships Challenges Countdown to Wintertown on Tumblr. Hope y'all enjoy it! I love these two. <3<3</p><p>Also! Gifted to Janel and Michael because they're forever stuck in my mind as Benjen/Meera fans and so I just can't help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manhattans in Flagstaff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janelrenee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janelrenee/gifts), [michael1280](https://archiveofourown.org/users/michael1280/gifts).



Fairy lights wink and sparkle in the lazy haze of snowfall, and there is such an abundance of them still strung up on store fronts that the brick sidewalk practically glows a wet, rust colored red. It’s almost painfully cold outside but she’s in a wonderful mood thanks to two hours of boredom-induced retail therapy. Still, she sighs with luxurious relief when the hostess of Wallflower opens one of the French doors for her, and she squeezes through with a smile of familiarity, her half dozen shopping bags making that feat a near impossibility.

“Sorry,” she says with a laugh as she juggles her parcels to pause her music and take out her earbuds. “The sales were just too good.”

And they were. The stores crowding this downtown block of Flagstaff were desperate to get rid of their seasonal merchandise; it was utterly worth the hassle of fighting through the slush and snow to get to them.

“You don’t have to tell  _me_. I filled the trunk of my car before my shift earlier today,” the hostess says with a wink and a grin. “Go on in, it’s been pretty slow tonight, he could use a distraction,” she says with a nod towards the bar at the back of the restaurant where her brother is hand drying stemware. 

_Slow, indeed._

It really is dead here tonight, the long, narrow room made to feel even emptier thanks to the joyful holiday décor lining the walls and filling waist-high vases. Red and green candles burn on each table, low key croonster music weaves through the soft-glow air, and a swag of pine and holly is mounted above the bar at the back of the room. She nods her thanks and puts on a face of nonchalance as she loudly rustles and bustles her way past the tables and chairs. It’s almost New Year’s Eve and though the holidays are usually busy this time of year, she’s grateful it’s mostly deserted tonight when she knocks over a chair with one of her bags.

“No, no, I got it,” she says when one of the only patrons half stands from his seat at a small table, and she chuckles with a sort of panic as she transfers all of her purchases onto one wrist so she can wrangle the chair back to standing.

Jojen is an eye-roll of a greeting when she finally dumps her bags on the floor by the bar and takes a barstool smack-dab in the middle of the row. Jojen turns and slides his freshly dried wine glass upside down into its little slot behind the bar and beneath the shelves of liquor.

 “Quite the entrance,” he says with the huff of a laugh. “I don’t think I could do better even if I were shit-faced drunk.”

“Don’t be bitchy, now,” she says as she unwinds her scarf from around her neck, dropping it onto the stool next to hers. “If you knew what I bought you for Christmas you wouldn’t be giving me that look.”

“Christmas is over, sister,” he says with a laugh, nodding when a bored looking waitress steps up with a drink order for a Manhattan. “Sure thing, Osha.”

“All the more reason to be grateful I was thinking of you, Grinch,” Meera says, leaning over the bar as she watches him crack a large cube of ice in his hand with a barspoon. “A drink sounds amazing.”

“I’ll make you one if you want. I’m so bored I nearly fell asleep earlier.”

“Make mine with an extra cherry, please,” Meera says cheerfully, deftly swiping one from the tray of garnishes when he turns away, popping it in her mouth and grinning to the server, who stares back unamused.

“Honestly, you should probably give this guy an extra cherry or two as well,” Osha says, bending a leg to rest her knee on one of the barstools. “He’s been sitting at a reserved table for two for over twenty minutes. The poor man nearly got excited when _this_  one barged in,” she says with an almost-glare at Meera, “only to realize she wasn’t here for him. Blind date gone stood-up, I bet,” she stage-whispers when Jojen slides the coupe glass across the bar.

“Well that sucks, he seems nice. He was about to help me with my chair,” Meera says.

She grabs a cocktail napkin and folds it around her cherry stem, glances over her shoulder to watch Osha take the cocktail to her customer.

“God, how depressing. A post-Christmas date- no, a post-Christmas  _blind_  date that doesn’t even have the gumption to show up,” Jojen says, getting right to work on her Manhattan.

“He’s cute, too,” she says, gazing with a sort of wince when the man looks up and offers Osha his thanks by way of a sad smile.

He’s tawny and leonine with a sandy-colored five day beard, lithe and lean with his arms folded on the table top, long fingers a wrap around his glass as he lifts it to take a sip.

“Cute, sure, but old. He’s got elbow patches on his jacket, for chrissakes,” Jojen says flippantly. Meera scoffs.

“He’s not  _old,_  just, you know, older,” she says, having given up completely on discretion as she swivels on her stool to regard him. She  _likes_  his blazer and how it makes her think of second hand bookstores. “Sort of like a sexy professor.”

“You and your professor types,” Jojen says with another eye-roll when she turns back to face him.

“Smart is sexy, all right?” she says, sipping her drink when he hands it over.

A sip for distraction. A sip for courage, too, because now she’s getting an idea in her head. Meera’s heart pounds as she roots around in the bottom of her purse for her lip gloss.

“Yeah, but old?”

“Oh, shut up, he’s  _not_  old,” she says to her reflection in her little compact mirror as she slides a fresh coat of gloss on her lower lip.

She purses them together, puckers up and blows her brother a kiss as she dumps the compact and lip gloss back in her bag.

“Don’t let anybody steal my stuff, all right?” she says, standing up and removing her coat, another handful of stalling steps and measures.

“Where are you- oh Christ, what are you going to do,” Jojen hisses, shaking his head when she flashes him what she hopes is a dazzling smile over her shoulder.

“Be somebody’s blind date,” she says, hoping with another thud of her heart that she’s right.

 

It’s been fifteen years and one divorce since Benjen has gone on a date, and he’s starting to wonder if waiting this long for what is clearly a no-show is starting to look a little pathetic. He tells himself nobody here knows, reminds himself that nobody has likely even paid him any attention.  _There is no spectacle to sitting alone,_  he thinks, somewhat sternly, ignoring that niggling reminder that he made reservations for two, that there is an empty place across the small table of candlelight. He decides that he will finish his drink, tip twice the amount in a thanks for his server’s indifference to the situation, and leave. He also decides that he will never again attempt to date online.

He’s mid-sip when a woman emerges from behind him, half startling him when she beams at him and comes to stand across from him, her hand resting on the back of the empty chair. She is young, though maybe not as young as his students, and she is pretty, all bauble and flicker with her bob of dark curly hair, with the flash of a bright smile.

“Is this seat taken?” she says, nodding down towards the chair.

“No, I’m afraid it’s as empty as the rest of them,” he says, gesturing with his glass towards the vacant tables. Benjen raises his eyebrows. “Why, would you like to knock this one down too?”

When she laughs, head thrown back and eyes closed, Benjen cannot help but smile.

“Very funny, buster,” she says, setting her drink down before she seats herself across from him. “So! How’s your Manhattan? I got extra cherries in mine,” she says with a nod and a conspiratorial lean forward. “See, I know the bartender.”

“It always pays off to date the bartender,” he says with a glance over his shoulder to where a young man stands polishing a glass and blatantly staring at their table, all seriousness to her effervescence.

Benjen wonders if this is some sort of strange setup, a bizarre take on Candid Camera or something.

“Oh God no,” she says when he turns back to regard her, to wonder at what in the hell is going on here. “He’s my brother,  _and_ he’s into guys.”

“Then I suppose I should feel bad that  _I_ didn’t get any extra cherries,” he says dryly.

Again that laugh, and again he cannot help but smile.

“You’re a funny guy. Are you some sort of comedian, funny guy?” she asks, shifting in her seat as, to his wonder and bemusement, she settles in and makes herself comfortable.

“I teach over at NAU, actually,” he says, sipping his drink and finding that it tastes sweeter, all of a sudden. “I’m sure some of my students think my class is a joke, though.”

“Oh my God, are you serious? So you  _are_  a sexy professor!” she exclaims, and there is a delightful moment when she gasps and claps a hand over her mouth.

Benjen almost chokes on his drink now that it’s his turn to burst out laughing. “I uh, I don’t think anyone has ever called me that, before. Not even my wife,” he chuckles, running his thumb along his lower lip, licking the spill of liquor from it.

“You’re  _married_? But you’re- I mean, I figured you got stood up by a blind date or something.”

It’s sort of beautiful, the way her animated expression falls, like snow outside the window to his right. He wonders if that’s disappointment, and some unstirred, slumbering feeling in him perks up at that wild notion.

“No, no, no, you're right, I was stood up,” he says, reaching halfway across the table before he remembers himself and that he doesn’t know this woman from Adam. 

 _Or Eve,_  he thinks, watching her mouth against the rim of her cocktail glass. He lowers his hand to the white tablecloth, fiddles with the candle like it was his intent the whole time.

“And I  _was_  married, sorry. I should have specified  _ex-_ wife.” he says.

“Ohhh,” she exhales with visible relief. Suddenly the night no longer feels like a waste. “Well, cheers to us not being married,” she says, setting down her glass and sliding it forward until it clinks against his. “Wait, I mean to us being single, not like, being married to each other. Or, wait,  _not_ being married to each other,” she says in an instant fluster, her cheeks a merry pink flush that Benjen finds he likes. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

“What idea was that?”

“To um, well, to be your replacement date, I guess. You just looked sort of lonely,” she breathes out in a rush when he chuckles and shakes his head. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“No apology necessary. I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth,” he says, pausing a moment before continuing. “Especially when that gift is a pretty girl calling me sexy.”

He still can’t get over that. Benjen Stark, childless divorcee in his mid-forties who wears thrift store blazers and carries a backpack instead of a briefcase, called sexy?  _It must be snowing this hard in hell._

The pink flush gets pinker, and now he realizes he can’t stop smiling.

“Pretty? Well,” she says, letting loose a giddy peal of laughter, clear and high like the ringing of a bell. “ _Well_ , I guess that deserves an introduction, huh,” and it dawns on them that this entire time he hasn’t known her name.

“You made me forget myself, I guess,” he smiles. “I’m Benjen.”

“Meera,” she says, and she clears her throat and sits up straight, lifting her chin and holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Benjen.”

It’s soft and small, nails painted a blue so dark they’re almost black in this low light, and she squeezes back firmly when he pulses his hand around hers. There is regret when he releases it but pleasure too, because of the way she drifts her fingertips down his palm and the length of his fingers. Fifteen years and one divorce, but even a dusty relic like him can pick up on a hint that heavy. Benjen smiles.

“So, Meera, aside from rescuing sad old men in empty restaurants, what is it that you do?”

 

He is  _funny,_  as light with his quips and his questions as his demeanor is laid back and reserved, and she finds she cannot stop smiling, grinning, laughing, touching her hair and running her fingers around the rim of her glass like it’s his hand in hers again. He is clearly one of those observers in life, less inclined to strut the stage than he is to gaze at it.  _And he’s gazing at me right now,_  she thinks. She feels like pirouetting for him.

Benjen is interested when she says she does admin work for Fish and Game, when most guys she’s dated look bored, but those were all guys her age, and she’s starting to appreciate the fact that  _this_ guy –  _This man,_ she thinks – has more than a few years on them. He tells her he bikes to work when the weather permits, that he lives only a few blocks away, and his eyebrows lift, ever so slightly, when they discover they live only two streets apart.  _Kissing close,_   _almost,_ she says.  _That would have to be a pretty big kiss,_  he says back.  _Huge,_  she agrees with a grin.

He’s a good conversationalist, and the naughty part of her wonders what else he’s good at. Her eyes drop to his hand when it slides forward so that the stem of his glass is between his index and middle fingers. She wrinkles her nose at where her thoughts go and glances out the window at the snow.

“I knew it,” he says with a shake of his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a smile he keeps his mouth clear of.

“What?” she says with a blink, wondering how blatant it is, her checking him out every thirty seconds.

“I’ve bored you. I knew it would happen,” he says, and then the smile blooms and she knows he’s teasing.

“Believe me, I’m not bored,” she says, tossing her hair out of her eyes and draining the last of her drink. “Absolutely, positively the opposite.”

“Liar,” he murmurs with a grin, lifting his cocktail to follow her lead.

He drops his gaze to her glass by way of asking and she smiles, bites her lip and nods. It’s old-fashioned and ridiculously sexy to her, when he lifts his hand and gestures to the server, when he orders two more Manhattans for them.

“Oh, and extra cherries for the lady.”

When Osha comes back with them, Jojen is in tow with Meera’s purse and shopping bags, her jacket and scarf draped over his arm.

“I’m afraid these are the last drinks for the night,” Jojen says, giving a sympathetic and miniscule shrug when Meera glares at him. “Sorry, but we close in ten minutes,” he whispers as he leans over close to set her things down beside her. “Don’t make the entire staff wait around just so you can get your flirt on.”

“Well, let me pay the tab now while I’ve got you here,” Benjen says, shifting to pull his wallet from his back pocket.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s on the house,” Jojen says as he takes a step backwards from the table, hands up with his palms out. “Lovebirds drink for free tonight,” and if that wasn’t bad enough, he ends it with a wink.

Osha grins behind him as she unties her black apron, and Meera flushes and drops her face into her cupped hands.  _I’m going to kill him for that._

“I think your brother might be teasing us,” Benjen says, taking out a twenty dollar bill and putting it on the table before returning his wallet to his pocket. “And I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be the butt of a joke.”

She peeks through her fingers at him before dropping her hands, feels her heart pound to find herself so deliciously under his scrutiny. A sigh comes ribboning out of her unbidden, so slowly drawn out that the candle flickers between them.

“Same here,” she says.

She is about to ask him to walk out with her when he asks if he can walk her home. Meera can’t stop the huge spread of a smile that comes out to chase her sigh around candlelight.

“I’d be crushed if you didn’t.”

They finish their drinks far more quickly than the first round, blaming it on the weather requiring a liquid blanket, blaming it on those amused looks her brother and Osha give them from the bar. When they stand up in unison she discovers that he is tall just as she thought, not overly so though he still dwarfs her. They smile at each other as he buttons his jacket and she rewraps her scarf around her throat, and she has never felt this school-girl fluttery, even back when she was a school girl.  _Kiss me,_  she wants to say.  _Kiss me now that we’re this close._

“Here, let me,” he says, stooping to gather up her shopping bags with one hand, his shoulder brushing her hip through her pea coat and jeans, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake.

“Thank you,” she says, marvel and delight mixing with cherries and vermouth here on her tongue. “That’s very gentlemanly of you."

“It’s the least I could do, considering you saved me from a boring night alone. Or worse, a night with someone else,” he says, and it’s not a wink he gives her, but another one of those crinkle-eyed smiles.

“Maybe I did it more for me than I did for you,” she says as she holds open the door for him.

“You keep it up with lines like that and I’m going to start thinking you’re not even real,” he says, and when they’re out on the slushy sidewalk under Christmas lights and snow, she quickly moves to his side that isn’t taken up with her bags and tucks her arm into his.

“See?” she says with a light squeeze, smiling up at him when he looks down at her with surprise. “All real. 100% real Meera.”

Benjen laughs.

It’s  _cold_ , teeth-chatter, shiver-shake cold, too frigid to allow the ease of conversation they had back in Wallflower. But because of it she finds herself burrowing against his side for warmth despite the burn of liquor in her belly, so much so that she is thrilled when he pulls his arm free and wraps it around her shoulders.

“Better?” he asks, and even though they’re already outside of her house, she nods her head and tells him yes. “Good. I’d hate for 100% Meera to freeze.”

“I had a really fun time with you tonight,” she tells him when they’re on her porch, when he’s set her shopping down by her welcome mat, when her heart is a frantic  _thumpthump_  because this is where he walks off and she never sees him again. It’s the last thing she wants.

“So did I,” he says, his breath a cloud that hangs between them like hesitation and doubt.

 _Screw it,_ Meera thinks, and she steps forward to close the distance between them, to reach up and take hold of him by the nape of his neck. He might not have been lucky in love like he told her, but he knows how to take hold of a cue and run with it. Benjen inclines his head, slides his hands to the small of her back, and in the glowof porch light, she stands on her toes and kisses him.

Whiskey and cherries, lemon twists and bitters, the sweet of red vermouth, all here with the scruff and scratch of him, with the press of his mouth before it opens so she can get a taste of him with her tongue. Benjen hums and Meera sighs.

“So, if I recall correctly, this is where I ask you for your number, right?” he says when the kiss breaks, when their mouths part and he presses his forehead to hers.

Another cloud of breath, though this has the hover of  _linger,_  of savor and sample and slake.

“It better be.”

 


End file.
